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Although the EU is highly dependent on Russian natural gas, overall demand for natural gas in the region peaked in 2010.

The EU has been focusing on its buildout of renewable sources. But the buildout isn’t happening fast enough to eliminate that foreign dependence.

That’s partly because the EU’s energy infrastructure is not set up to handle the intermittency of renewable energy — it’s hard to store energy from renewables for times when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow. A number of solutions are being developed for this problem, including large-scale utility batteries and “green” hydrogen (generated from renewable resources then stored and transported before being burned for actual fuel consumption), but those solutions aren’t at scale yet.

The EU renewable strategy has largely depended on smaller solar installations by consumers, said Peter Sobotka, the founder and CEO of Corinex, a company specializing in improving the efficiency of European energy distribution networks.

“This model requires huge investments to the grid to essentially move excess energy where it’s needed in real time, to keep energy costs low for the end-user,” he told CNBC.

“There is simply not enough grid capacity now to take up more renewables in some parts of Europe, e.g. Spain and the Netherlands,” Schittekatte said.

Some utilities are aware of the problem. E.ON, a utility in Germany, has started a €22 billion investment over the next five years to upgrade and digitize its energy distribution networks. “In light of the Ukraine crisis, these plans may be coming in a bit late,” Sobotka said.

Also, the permitting process is slow, and in certain instances, there is public opposition, “the so-called NIMBY issue,” Schittekatte said.

In some cases, renewable buildout in EU requires nations to cooperate, which can cause slowdowns as well.

“The bulk of renewable electricity should come from the North Sea via offshore wind but the difficulty with that is that is requires multilateral cooperation — all the North Sea bordering states should ideally work together,” Schittekatte said.

In the immediate future, Erdmann says Europe has enough energy, with gas storage facilities in Germany 30% full.

“This is less than in former years at the end of the heating season, but sufficient,” Erdmann told CNBC.